The Tamil Nadu Assembly witnessed unprecedented scenes on January 9 when Governor R. N. Ravi, while delivering his customary address to the House, omitted certain paragraphs from the text prepared by the State government. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin later moved a motion to take on record only the transcript distributed …
Read More »Daily Archives: January 18, 2023
BHOPAL GAS CASE
The Union of India calls the Bhopal gas leak tragedy the world’s largest industrial disaster. On the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, leading to hundreds of deaths. Thirty-nine years after the incident, …
Read More »HIMALAYAN DEVELOPMENT MODEL AND JOSIMATH
It is now clear that all warnings in the Mishra Committee report almost 50 years back went unheeded in the race to develop Joshimath by successive governments since 2001. It was clearly pointed out that Joshimath township is situated on debris of earlier landslides and would slip someday. But development …
Read More »RECONSTRUCTING PAST DEEP-WATER CIRCULATIONS OF INDIAN OCEAN
Global overturning circulation—the equatorward transport of cold, deep waters and the poleward transport of warm, near-surface waters— controls ocean heat distribution and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, thus playing a critical role in global climate. It is thought that tectonic changes might have led to the formation of two separate water …
Read More »NEW ELECTRICITY RULES IN KERALA
The gazette notification on the Electricity (Amendment) Rules, 2022, came out on December 29. Ever since the Union Power Ministry shared the draft rules with the States last August, the CPI(M)-led government in Kerala had fiercely objected to Rule 14 which permits distribution companies (Discoms) to automatically recover from consumers, …
Read More »THE DELHI CM-LG STALEMATE CONTINUES
The recent flashpoint between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena was triggered ahead of the January 6 election of the Mayor and deputy Mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). AAP has accused the LG of issuing orders on “practically everything” and bypassing …
Read More »PROVIDENT FUND PENSION SCHEME
For around 70 lakh pensioners, the end to the agonising wait for higher pension under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS), 1995, appears to be no where in sight even though it has been over two months since the Supreme Court of India reiterated, as a matter of principle, its approval …
Read More »PROMOTING DIGITAL PAYMENTS AND GUARD AGAINST CYBER THREATS
The Union Cabinet’s recent decision to earmark ₹2,600 crore for providing banks with an incentive to promote digital payments has focused attention on India’s welcome push to broaden and deepen alternatives to the most widely accepted method of payment worldwide, cash. The Reserve Bank of India’s ‘Payments Vision 2025’ document …
Read More »INDIA AS PRESIDENT OF THE G20 SUMMIT
The Government’s summit for developing nations, called the “Voice of the Global South Summit”, as its first big leadership-level G20 event, is an extremely important signal. It is also a departure from New Delhi’s looking towards the “high-table” of global leadership, involving its relationship with the UNSC P5 and G-7 …
Read More »NATIONAL AQUIFER MAPPING -CLEAN GANGA
The National Aquifer Mapping and Management programme, which is aimed at delineating aquifer and water availability, is set to be completed in a year, G. Asok Kumar, Director-General, National Mission for Clean Ganga, Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, said in Chennai on Monday. Kumar inaugurated a three-day conference on ‘Water …
Read More »INDIA’S NEW PROPOSAL FOR MIGRANT VOTING
The Election Commission of India (ECI) could not demonstrate a prototype of its new Remote Electronic Voting Machine (RVM), which would allow domestic migrants to vote in national and regional elections, after the Opposition raised concerns about the logistical and administrative challenges to remote voting. The Congress had earlier urged …
Read More »CHINA’S POPULATION DECLINES IN 2022
China’s population declined by 850,000 in 2022, the first such fall since a nationwide famine in 1961, marking a landmark demographic shift for the world’s second-largest economy. The National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing on Tuesday said the national population stood at 1.411 billion at the end of 2022. India …
Read More »400 TRIBAL YOUTH FROM 3 LWE-AFFECTED DISTRICTS IN CHHATTISGARH TO JOIN CRPF
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has completed the process of recruitment of 400 tribal youth from Sukma, Bijapur and Dantewada, the districts worst affected by left-wing extremism in Chhattisgarh. The recruits will join the basic CRPF training in March, a senior government official said. To encourage recruitment from these …
Read More »IDENTIFYING MINORITIES IN INDIA
The Centre’s position in the Supreme Court remained uncertain on Tuesday on whether its 1993 notification identifying Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis as minority communities needed reconsideration in light of a view by the National Commission for Minorities that religious and linguistic minority communities ought to be identified State-wise. …
Read More »NEW FREE FOODGRAIN SCHEME
In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, ‘Squealer, the small fat pig’ was a brilliant orator who always spoke to the hard-working animals about a ‘readjustment of rations’, but ‘never as a “reduction”’. The Government’s latest announcement on free foodgrains is a case of similar doublespeak. The Cabinet has announced that under the …
Read More »THE ILLOGICAL REJECTION OF THE IDEA OF SOUTH ASIA
It is an ill-wind that blows throughout the neighbourhood. A recent World Bank study on air pollution concludes that about two million people die prematurely in South Asia each year as particulate measure concentrations put nine South Asian cities among the world’s top 10 worst affected by air pollution. The …
Read More »THE AVERAGE PRICE RISE AND COOLING IN INFLATION
The last month of 2022 capped a year dominated by high inflation headlines on a seemingly amiable note. The average price rise faced by consumers during December slipped to its lowest since November 2021 at 5.7%. Data released on Monday show that wholesale inflation also fell to a 22-month-nadir of …
Read More »CHINA MUST WITHDRAW THE HOLD ON LISTING OF FOUR OTHER PAKISTANI TERRORISTS
India has welcomed the designation of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) deputy chief Abdur Rehman Makki as a sanctioned terrorist by the UN Security Council, after China withdrew the “technical hold” it had placed on the listing last year. Makki, the brother-in-law of 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, is on the most wanted lists …
Read More »ELEPHANT TRANSLOCATIONS IN NILGIRI BIOSPHERE RESERVE’
The recent attempt to unsuccessfully translocate and rehabilitate a “problem elephant”, as described by the State Forest Department, has highlighted the need for better cooperation among Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka while releasing elephants in the tri-junction area of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR). The elephant in question, Pandalur Makhna-2 …
Read More »UNSC SANCTIONS COMMITTEE BLACKLISTS LASHKAR’S MAKKI
The ISIL and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council (UNSC) has placed Abdul Rehman Makki, a fundraiser and key planner of the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), on its sanctions list. The move was made possible after China withdrew the “technical hold” that it had imposed last June, …
Read More »